Many conventional media channels and organizations will have set procedures for accepting press releases. These may be published on their web sites and may involve email or fax submissions.

In some cases, to avoid being buried alive in paper and text, many media channels will guard their email ids and fax numbers – you may have to call them and ask for their news desk contact details. Some may not accept direct press releases at all other than from accredited sources.

This route may prove tedious and perhaps not hugely successful (unless you have REAL news) and you’ll certainly have to make a lot of phone calls and/or send lots of emails and faxes.

Do it yourself – New Media

You can do something broadly similar through the various forms of ‘new media’.

Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook plus even Youtube, now all have a role to play in publicizing an event or situation. They are often described now as media sources in many respects.

It is possible to exploit this although the tools and techniques may differ depending on the site/service. Remember that unlike the conventional press release, these targets allow the easy incorporation of images, graphics and video.

However, there is far from universal agreement that these other sources actually constitute ‘media’ and the efficacy of using them for various forms of ‘press release’ is open to dispute. The position appears to be evolving rapidly.

Internet News Sites

There are media channels that exist only (or primarily) in the electronic world – Google News is one such example.

The readership of such sites is potentially phenomenal and they may be prime targets for your press releases – but getting onto them isn’t easy.

Many won’t accept direct press release submissions and instead trawl the net for press releases that catch their attention.

There are specialist ‘news distribution’ web sites that have been set up to sit there for the sole purpose of catching the attention of these trawls as they go around. They often consist almost entirely of press releases of one sort of another and the Google and other trawls will occasionally pick up these press releases from them for incorporation into Google’s own news site.

Accessing News Distribution Sites

Some of these sites provide membership and chargeable services for the publication of your press releases. You simply upload your releases and hope that the site will be able to attract the interest of passing trawls specifically to your release.

Some of these sites offer SEO (search engine optimization) services designed to theoretically make your release more attractive to the search engines. The service providers may also advise on SEO content techniques in the writing of the press release itself.

However, this is an area of, at times, acrimonious debate. The extent to which SEO optimization, as opposed to rich newsworthy text, remains effective in attracting trawls is highly debatable.

Choosing the right distribution site is key as some may have little real chance of ensuring that your release breaks through into the real media domains.

Press Release Services

There are a large number of companies specializing in various aspects of press release support.

Some of these offer services that are essentially those of authoring alone. That may be of value if you don’t have confidence in your ability to use good journalistic language.

More commonly, they also specialize in release distribution. This involves them, for a fee, distributing your copy to a potentially large number of press distribution sources of the type outlined above. This may also again include SEO optimization services.

Once again though, their effectiveness is open to discussion and an objective view of their success rates is not always easily assessed in advance of using their services.

Although the costs of their services are typically relatively modest, it may still be advisable to seek personal recommendation and references before making a final decision.

Full PR Services

If you are looking for national press penetration or even substantial local press coverage, it may be worth thinking about a full-blown PR service approach.

One function of the conventional PR Company is to exploit their existing contacts in various areas of the media so as to give you the best chance possible of getting your release syndicated and used.

This approach typically is based far more on relationships and expert knowledge of media services that it is on the finer esoteric points of SEO in the hope that this attracts a passing trawl.

Although the success rates here may be far higher than through other channels, of course, the downside is that the costs may be significantly higher. Successful PR companies tend not to come cheap!

Summary

In the final analysis, short of you managing to come up with a press release that is truly awe-inspiring in terms of its newsworthiness, getting your material published in prominent forums may not be easy.

Few people doubt how useful it can be to have your press release published somewhere that large numbers of people actually get to see it, but there is less universal agreement on the best way to achieve that.

All the above methods and techniques may have a part to play as you move up the sophistication ladder and perhaps your financial resources grow.

Even so, at times it may be prudent to think through carefully what it is you are trying to achieve and when – this may in some cases lead you to the conclusion that an advertising campaign may yield more predictable benefits.

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